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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23888254">Of Singing Ice and Smoked Salmon in the Northlands</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrocantha/pseuds/acrocantha'>acrocantha</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Missions Gone Wrong, Worldbuilding, something different</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:47:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23888254</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrocantha/pseuds/acrocantha</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A night later, and Muta Aburame, his other teammate, sits with Tokuma. His cup of tea is cold and long forgotten.</p><p>"There were things that moved beneath the ice, larger than any summons I've ever seen."</p><p>Muta does not miss the way his voice nearly cracks.</p><p>"She said they hunted by sound alone, with hearing so tuned that they could hear a scuff of sandal against ice from miles away." The huff he lets out sounds a little amused, but also somehow self-deprecating. "With how quiet it was, I believe her. The silence made my ears ring." Something changes in Tokuma's face, something careful, calculating. His hands tighten around his mug. "I have seen war, Muta, I know that feeling before a battle. There is something like that in the Northlands, too, in the raw chakra of the forests and snow and ice."</p><p>Muta is silent, staring pensively at his musing teammate, but the Hyuuga simply gazes out the window. A hand reaches up to rub gently at the carved beads around his neck. He wishes he could see what Tokuma does.</p><p>"It is waiting, though for what I do not know."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tokuma Hyuuga is a jounin, a strong, talented one at that. Known as one of the best sensors in his clan, he had been sent on a scroll retrieval mission, only for all hell to break loose (which he really should've expected given that he was so deep in the Land of Snow, a place they only had limited intel on). The team is already scattered and dead, Tokuma himself heavily wounded, and a number of Snow shinobi hot on his tail. He no longer knows which direction he's heading, but he will take anywhere over here.</p><p>He runs blind, fearing nothing more than collapsing. If it was only death that awaited him, he would've turned to face it - he signed up for death the moment he graduated the Academy. But with the scroll he carries- he simply can't let it fall into enemy hands. The Hokage will have to wait a little longer for whatever precious intel he carried. So he runs. He runs and he runs and he runs.</p><p>-</p><p>Hours later, he pitches forward, limp, legs turned to jelly and heart thudding in his chest. He's exhausted, chakra reserves utterly spent, but his tails had slowly but surely dropped away. He was finally alone.</p><p>He'll just rest here, he tells himself. Just for a little while. He can afford to take a break before heading back home.</p><p>There is blood staining the snow. He doesn't notice it.</p><p>Tokuma Hyuuga's pearly eyes slide shut for what might be the final time.</p><p>-</p><p>He doesn't wake when someone shakes his shoulder, or when they lift his near-frozen-stiff body onto a sled, or during the journey even deeper into the forest. He doesn't wake for a long, long time, but<br/>
when he does, it is to warmth and less blood on his face than he remembers.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tokuma wakes slowly, vaguely aware of someone moving about his not-so-immediate space. He can't bring himself to care in this haze of tired apathy. Everything goes black moments later anyways.</p><p>The second time he wakes, he immediately tries to fling himself up into a battle position, but crumples back in on himself when the gash along his ribs reopens. A woman bustles over, cloth in hand, with an annoyed expression. "Lie down, you ripped your stitches open, idiot warrior."</p><p>He barely has the energy to groan "Where am I?", much less sit up, so he does so.</p><p>"The Northlands. Found you passed out in the snow, half-dead from your wounds and the cold."</p><p>With every wipe and stitch he winces, but his mind is too caught on the fact that he is in the Northlands, an entirely unexplored and unknown region above the Land of Snow. "Northlands?"</p><p>"Yes. Now be quiet and try to go back to sleep or something, you need more rest."</p><p>Like those are the magic words, he passes out.</p><p>-</p><p>Apparently the woman's name is Kanon ("Just Kanon," she'd said), and she wasn't much older than him. She'd been rather agreeable so far, what with being so trusting as to house a complete stranger from another country in her home. Turns out the people of the Northlands didn't care for whatever politics were going on in the Elemental Nations. Currently they are discussing (no, not arguing about geography but discussing) the borders of the northern countries. </p><p>"Konoha doesn't teach about anything north of the Land of Lighting."</p><p>"And my mother didn't teach me anything south of the Land of Snow," she side-eyes him from her post at the woodstove, stirring soup with a carved spoon, "Yet I still know just how our region have survived for so long without any interference from the southern countries." Tokuma would find the way she kept threatening her with the spoon funny if he wasn't so enraptured by her words. "The Land of Ice and the Land of Snow lack any trade with each other because the Northlands dip south enough on a peninsula to separate them. Nobody wants to risk traveling through such an inhospitable area."</p><p>He leans forward, interested in a foreign geography lesson. "They don't have any roads? No trade routes?"</p><p>"If they want to trade so badly, they must sail around the peninsula. That specific area really isn't that bad, but I suppose the Northlands has gained a bit of a reputation, so it's totally avoided." She smirks, and Tokuma's brows nearly raise into his hairline. That's the biggest show of expression he's seen on her in all his time here. "It is not the Northlands that protect the Land of Ice from Snow, but the Land of Snow protecting the Elemental Nations from the Northlands."</p><p>"You make it sound as if this place hides some grave threat," He pushes himself into a sitting position, wincing slightly at the pull of stitches at his side.</p><p>"There is a reason why few make it into the Northlands, much less out."</p><p>"Guards?"</p><p>"Did you meet any guards on your way here?" At his headshake, she snorts quietly, turning back to the fire. "Thought not. There is little need for guards when the landscape does the killing for you."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tokuma is irrationally angry with himself for thinking he could just heal up, thank Kanon for her time, and be on his way home. Of course his wounds decided to heal super slow, and of course they decided that now of all times would be the perfect time to become infected. He was stuck in a rural area with little healthcare to speak of and stuck in a cabin with a woman who really put the fear of Kami into him.</p><p>Speaking of said woman, Kanon declares that she will make the trip to the nearest settlement (not even a town, a literal settlement) to try and buy some herbs and new bandages. She is gone for a day and a half but comes back victorious- wrapped in cloth are a bunch of herbs he doesn't recognize but clearly must be important, going by the way Kanon immediately goes to grinding away at them with a mortar and pestle.</p><p>When he asks why she would risk such a journey for his sake when the infection is minor and will likely go away with regular rest and washing, she stares at him with no small mixture of surprise and incredulity. It's like she can't believe why he would ask that.</p><p>"If you leave this house in anything less than perfect health, you will die."</p><p>There is only honesty in her words.</p><p>-</p><p>Kanon decides he is well enough to accompany her on a hunt today. He does his best to be quick about toeing on his boots and follows her out the door, only to stop on the porch in surprise. The wind is gone. And then he remembers he's supposed to be following the short women and stumbles over himself in his haste to catch up.</p><p>After a good hour of walking, they reach the ocean, or at least an inlet of it. It reminds him of the massive sounds split into canals in Kiri, though it is so much more silent here; the only sound is the crunch of snow beneath their boots. Before they reach the ice, though, Kanon stops and turns to face him, eyes impossibly flinty. "You must never make a sound. No talking, no steps, coat your sandals in chakra if you have to. It would not do good to offend them." </p><p>"Them?"</p><p>"Come." She slides out onto the ice silently, and he uses the Catspaw technique to make himself equally unobtrusive. To what, he does not know.</p><p>-</p><p>The answer comes in the form of two approaching chakra figures half an hour into their excursion when they are already far out on the ice.</p><p>Kanon must sense it just as he does, because she flings a hand out, suddenly still and silent. He immediately freezes. Before he can open his mouth to question, her finger comes up to her lips, slowly, carefully. He stays quiet.</p><p>Stretching out his senses, Tokuma is hyper aware of the tiniest twitch of his own hands, the smallest amount of chakra in the fish Kanon carries in her woven basket, the way the ice trembles beneath their feet. Something approaches, roiling the currents deep below. Two massive shadows slide forward, far too muddled to be seen clearly through the thick ice, but the predatory way they cut through the water tells him enough.</p><p>For five minutes, they dare not move. It is only once they are back on the rocky, ice-encrusted shore that she speaks. "They hunt by sound. A single scuff of boot against ice would've led them straight to us."</p><p>"They'd've eaten us?"</p><p>"Probably not - they tend not to eat us humans - but would you take that risk?"</p><p>A land where giant summons just... run (swim?) free. Horrifying. His mind turns back to the conversation as he pitches forward, but manages to recover in time so that he doesn't land on his face.</p><p>"They are far older than you and I. They have lived as long as the land; I'd rather not interrupt their hunt." She doesn't even glance over her shoulder at him as she readjusts the basket on her shoulder. "Here, you are not the most powerful species. You must learn to coexist."</p><p>-</p><p>Tokuma Hyuuga has been trapped in the Northlands for nearly two months. He doesn't know how to feel about it.</p><p>Kanon says she will lead him south tomorrow.</p><p>-</p><p>"This is as far as I will take you. If you head southwest at top speed, you should reach the border within an hour." Her flinty eyes haven't left his for a moment. "Do not stop until you reach your homeland, Tokuma. There is no clear boundary between here and the Land of Snow- don't risk getting turned around in a place you find familiar enough to relax." There is something impossibly odd in her expression, something speaking of loss but also a great relief. Neither mention it.</p><p>"Now run, Tokuma."</p><p>He turns away, fists impossibly clenched yet oh-so-gentle holding onto the beaded, clawed necklace. "Thank you for everything, Kanon."</p><p>"Run."</p><p>He does. The necklace slips over his head within the first step of his lunge forward, and his heart settles beneath the carved bone and ivory. He does not look back.</p><p>He knows if he looks back, she'd already be melting back into the snow.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Konoha welcomes him back with open arms, the chuunin guards rushing to get him inside the gate, to safety, in the pre-dawn light. He stammers out his shinobi ID, half-walking and half-being-dragged to the hospital before an ANBU appears. They shunshin to the hokage's office. </p><p>When his report is finished, the sun has almost fully risen, and the bags under his eyes are more pronounced than ever.</p><p>The clan compound welcomes him back with stony stares and statements with two meanings. The comments stick to him like burrs as he crashes into his bed and sleeps the rest of the day away.</p><p>-</p><p>It only late, late that night that Ranka swings by and drags him out of his carefully-constructed little room of quiet. He tries to fend off his teammate, saying that he needs time to decompress, but the peppy man only takes his words and twists them around enough to where Tokuma finds himself sitting in a dingy bar on the other side of town. Ranka and two others are engaged in some inane conversation about the outdated autopsy procedures of T&amp;I, but he knows his silence won't be ignored for long. </p><p>Predictably, the man catches on mere moments later, and scoots closer, leaning in with suddenly-sharp eyes. "Looks like you got something on your mind there, Tokuma, wanna share?" </p><p>"The last mission I ran... I don't know. Guess it reminded me of how privileged I am."</p><p>"What, see some starving kids and remember how you got a roof over your head and food in your stomach? Shit's tough but we see it pretty often."</p><p>The image of Kanon -quiet, always unshaken Kanon- becoming motionless when leading him across miles of singing ice makes something in his stomach roil. He can still feel the way it trembled under his feet. Ranka wouldn't understand.</p><p>He agrees, if only to get the man off his back. "Yeah, you're right, just the post-mission jitters." He picks up his glass once again, but leaves the bar at the first chance.</p><p>-</p><p>A night later, and Muta Aburame, his other teammate, sits with Tokuma. His cup of tea is cold and long forgotten.</p><p>"There were things that moved beneath the ice, larger than any summons I've ever seen."</p><p>Muta does not miss the way his voice nearly cracks.</p><p>"She said they hunted by sound alone, with hearing so tuned that they could hear a scuff of sandal against ice from miles away." The huff he lets out sounds a little amused, but also somehow self-deprecating. "With how quiet it was, I believe her. The silence made my ears ring." Something changes in Tokuma's face, something careful, calculating. His hands tighten around his mug. "I have seen war, Muta, I know that feeling before a battle. There is something like that in the Northlands, too, in the raw chakra of the forests and snow and ice."</p><p>Muta is silent, staring pensively at his musing teammate, but the Hyuuga simply gazes out the window. A hand reaches up to rub gently at the carved beads around his neck. He wishes he could see what Tokuma does.</p><p>"It is waiting, though for what I do not know."</p>
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